A Slam Dunk by Anthony Davis, Assist to Jason Robinson

Throughout my career organizing concerts, I have been blessed to be able present musicians whose work I admire. Sometimes they are people with whom I have a relationship; other times they are folks I am anxious to meet. But it is rare for me to produce a concert featuring a friend and a hero.

That opportunity came on Sunday, November 13 when the UMass Fine Arts Center’s Solos & Duos Series hosted the Anthony Davis/Jason Robinson Duo at Bezanson Recital Hall.

When he first moved to the Pioneer Valley eight years ago to begin his teaching career at Amherst College, saxophonist Jason Robinson looked me up. Our mutual friend, trombonist Michael Dessen, had recommended we connect. Connect we did. Over the years, Jason has performed at my Magic Triangle Jazz Series with his nine-piece Janus Ensemble, performed solo at a Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares Annual Meeting, engaged his students with visiting artists for workshops, and helped save the Magic Triangle Series (at least for this year) by hosting a concert at Amherst College. We have shared many meals and conversations. He is not only a friend, but an ally.

Anthony Davis, who mentored Robinson in graduate school at University of California, San Diego, is someone whose music has had a major impact on my development as a listener. As I began to dig deep into jazz, I luckily stumbled across Davis’ early records like Song For the Old World (India Navigation, 1978), Of Blues and Dreams (Sackville, 1978), Hidden Voices (India Navigation, 1979) and Epistēmē (Grammavision, 1981.) With little experience and no context, I wrestled with these sounds, so different than the Ellington and Mingus I was digesting at the time. When the music hit me, when its secrets unlocked, I was a changed listener.

Sunday’s 70-minute recital was sublime, filled with gorgeous and varied tone, sturdy compositional structure, ample space for virtuosity and real musical conversation. Building on a rapport that began in San Diego and blossomed on their 2010 Clean Feed recording, Cerulean Landscape, Davis and Robinson each contributed tunes and shared the spotlight.

Robinson began on curved soprano, unfurling round, mellifluous tones not usually associated with the instrument. His tone on alto flute, which he used on “Translucence”, was also robust and full-bodied. During the rest of the evening, Robinson played tenor saxophone, exploring multiple registers, extended techniques and a variety of moods. His breath control, his note articulation, his ideas, the perfect way his split notes split, were commanding yet unforced.

Over the years, Anthony Davis has retained the influence of two of his touchstones: Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. I heard references to those masters in Davis’ rich chord voicings, the question mark at the end of a phrase, his elegant touch and blues feeling. These elements, audible from the beginning of his career, make Davis’ sound his own. One of the pieces the duo covered was the pianist’s “Graef”, which appears on Of Blues and Dreams. The rubato introduction left me wondering if it was the same composition I had spent so much time with. Then the simple, insistent bass line emerged, co-mingled with the probing, inquisitive melody I remembered.

I was surprised how few of my music-literate friends knew about Anthony Davis. It’s true he has devoted much of his time to composing and academia. He has written eight operas, including X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X (Grammavision, 1992). His most recent, FIVE, chronicles the witch hunt known as the Central Park Five, and includes an appearance by our hate-mongering president-to-be. But other than occasional appearances with Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet, Davis has hardly appeared on a jazz record in decades. Still, he is an important figure in modern music, and in my bubbled world, someone everyone should know. I’m glad my neighbors got a chance to hear a master perform.

Jazz Shares Brings Nate Wooley to the Pioneer Valley

Nate Wooley’s prodigious talent, expanding musical sensibilities and keen intelligence has overwhelmed any trepidation he feels about performing in public. He has a composition titled I Prefer the Company of Birds. The 42 year old trumpeter and bandleader shared humorous and touching stories about his bouts of social anxiety with 75 concert goers at the Shea Theater on Sunday, November 6.

Before launching into their 70-minute set, Wooley explained his decision to set up shop in the “pit” rather than on the stage of the lovely Turners Falls venue built in 1927. After spending many years of his youth in the back row of big bands (“as far away as one could get from the girls dancing in the back”), he vowed in the future to get as close to the people as possible when playing. This upset the plans of videographer Dennis Steiner of the Archive Project, who was anticipating the superior angles and light afforded from the stage. Instead, the band: Josh Sinton, Matt Moran, Eivind Opsvik, Harris Eisenstadt and Wooley, basked in half shadow throughout the evening.

If the visuals were impaired, the sound was not. Each member of the group was heard clearly and to great effect. The concert, drawn largely from Wooley’s recent recording, (Dance to) The Early Music, (Clean Feed, 2015) featured five mid-career artists at the peak of their powers. Wooley can do things on the trumpet that only a small number of people on the planet can do. The dazzling series of smears, bleats, swallowed notes and split tones, delivered with speed and musicality, caused murmurs and muffled laughter from the crowd. His unaccompanied solo that introduced Skain’s Domain, was breathtaking, like stepping out for a first view from the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Most of the evening’s music was written by Wynton Marsalis, and found on his earliest recordings. That a so-called avant-garde trumpeter would choose to interpret the music of a conservative stylist like Marsalis might seem like a strange choice, perhaps one born of cynicism or parody. In fact, as Wooley explained, after a traumatic experience at sleepaway band camp, he and his father spent the drive home repeatedly listening to Marsalis’ Black Codes (From the Underground). The music had a profound impact on the young Wooley, providing inspiration and direction.

I have found that as a group, jazz musicians are flexible, ingenious and hard to ruffle. That was again illustrated when vibraphonist Matt Moran discovered he had left his cross bar, which stabilizes the instrument and holds the pedal, home. Finding a piece of wood, a whittling knife, gaffer’s tape and a drill borrowed from Jazz Shareholder Ken Irwin, Moran fashioned a replacement. No one (but him) noticed the difference. Using two or four mallet technique, Moran made his instrument sing, adding color and drive to the proceedings.

Incidentally, you should check out his fabulous new recording of Duke Ellington’s Far East Suite by his nine-piece Balkan brass band, Slavic Soul Party!.

What a treat to hear a bass clarinet in concert, especially in the hands of Josh Sinton. The son of shareholders John and Wendy Sinton, Josh performed during season one of Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares with his outstanding Steve Lacy-inspired quartet, Ideal Bread. That ensemble featured Josh on baritone saxophone. On Sunday we were treated to the rich, woody sound of bass clarinet, played with reverence and irreverence by a master of the instrument.

Drummer Harris Eisenstadt, who will be back in the Valley on February 12 with Old Growth Forrest (Tony Malaby, Jeb Bishop, Jason Roebke), blended perfectly with Wooley’s Quintet, providing just what was needed to needle and spark. He told us of his recent trips to Cuba to study and absorb. Perhaps his solo, played with his hands, reflected this interest in Afro-Cuban drumming. His solo did not sound Latin per se, but the way his fingers and hands hit the skins reminded me of the great Latin hand drummers.

Embodying the bass as backbone, Eivind Opsvik provided the armature for the ensemble’s quirky flights, creating supple bass lines that rooted and routed expectations in equal measure. Eivind will be back on March 27 to perform with Mary Halvorson’s Reverse Blue.

All hail the awkward, the oddballs, the misfits and outsiders, who point us in new directions and help us discover novel perspectives.

The Exquisiteness of Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri

Although common in European classical music, piano and viola duos are rare in the jazz world. Even when I expanded my search to piano and violin, the pickins’ were slim (Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman.) But on October 16, about 60 listeners were treated to just such a pairing at Robyn Newhouse Hall at the Community Music School of Springfield.

The Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares concert, featuring Lucian Ban, piano and Mat Maneri, viola, was scheduled at CMSS because their piano is better than others we use, but the choice of venue could not have been more perfect. The sound was superb and the juxtaposition of elegant surroundings and regal music made it easy to dive deep into the proceedings.

With Maneri playing through a Fender Twin Reverb amp, the Duo’s 75-minute recital (including encore) was a wide-ranging affair, touching on blues, eastern European folk traditions and Indian music, refracted through a lens equal parts classical and jazz.

Ban is from the small Romanian village of Teaca, near where the Duo’s brilliant 2013 release, Transylvanian Concert (ECM), was recorded. Ban’s pride of place is reflected in the pianist’s celebration of George Enesco, a composer, violinist, conductor, pianist and teacher, and Romania’s most famous musician. Enesco’s most famous student, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, called his mentor “the greatest musician I have ever known.”

Ban met Maneri while recording Enesco Re-Imagined (Sunnyside), a gorgeous paean that Ban and John Hébert produced in 2010. From the Springfield stage, Ban recalled that at one point, Enesco’s music called for a piano/viola duet. The spark between Ban and Maneri convinced them to pursue their smaller project, one that continues to yield dividends. Their Jazz Shares concert was the first in a 13-city tour that will take them to the Earshot Festival (Seattle), Blue Whale (Los Angeles) and Western Front (Vancouver.) There is another recording in the works.

Their Sunday concert included Enesco’s Sonata no. 3, which highlighted the mind-boggling talent of Mat Maneri. I have never heard music played at such high pitch and low volume sound so rich and thick with expression. The variety of techniques he used was staggering. Shareholder Batya Sobel marveled how Maneri would bounce his bow across the strings as beginners often do. His control and mastery, however, transformed the gesture into a flute-like warble that was fresh and evocative.

Mat is the son of the late Joe Maneri, the unique reedman and long-time mentor at New England Conservatory. Joe came up in Brooklyn playing clarinet in Greek, Turkish and Jewish dance bands, wrote concertos and was a leader in microtonal music. Harvey Pekar, John Zorn and especially his son, coaxed him into the public realm, and he enjoyed wide recognition during his last 10 years thanks to a series of startling ECM records.

In October 2004, I was thrilled to present Joe and Mat Maneri as part of the UMass Solos & Duos Series. The only concert poster Mat has in his house is from that event. He fondly recalled the evening, as did his mom, Sonja, who had driven to Amherst from the family home in Framingham. I’ll always remember at the music’s end, Mat coming over to his father and kissing him on the forehead before bowing together.

Season 5 of Jazz Shares is off to a wonderful start. On to Shea Theater for the Nate Wooley Quintet.